


Grace, Mercy and Peace

by Overnighter



Category: The OC
Genre: Angst, Brotherhood, Flash Fic, Future Fic, Gen, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-09-03
Updated: 2007-09-03
Packaged: 2017-11-16 15:28:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/540985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Overnighter/pseuds/Overnighter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is taken from brandywine421's 15-minute fic challenge.  The prompt was "Dad is dying."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Grace, Mercy and Peace

"Dad's dying." 

He hadn't expected the first words he'd spoken to his brother in over twenty years to be so blunt. He'd meant to open with a hello, at least, but the moment he'd picked up the phone, it was like he was back there all over again. 

"Ryan." 

The voice was older, and softer, but unmistakably Trey's. 

He sighed, and started again, clearing his throat. 

"Yeah, Trey. It's me. I'm sorry. It's just - Dad. Dad's dying." 

"I heard you the first time. Good riddance, I say. How - how are you?" 

"I'm good, Trey, really. I didn't - I didn't mean to call you like this. But Dad wants to see you." 

"You're in touch with the sunvabitch? I can't believe they'd ever let him out," Trey rasped. 

Ryan sighed, and took a drag from his cigarette, nearly smiling as he heard Trey do the same. It was almost dark, out here on the terrace, and the sky over the bay was deepening into purple. He could hear the far-off sound of the buoys, and the faint hum of traffic from the road below him, but nothing on the other end of the phone except the exhale of smoke. 

"He's - he's not the same man anymore. He's been out a long time, Trey. Almost..." he stopped as he realized the implications of what he was about to say. 

"Almost twenty years." 

"Oh." 

Ryan hadn't thought it would be this easy to read his brother after all so long, but he could hear the hurt and the anger behind Trey's small exhalation. It said, _He found you, and not me_ , and _You forgave him, and not me_ , and a thousand other things that Trey would never say. 

He cupped his hand around the flame of his forbidden cigarette out of habit, tucking the phone under his ear. It wasn't necessary; he'd sent everyone over to the grandparents' for dinner, begging some quiet time, knowing he had to call, but he was too used to setting an example to stop now. 

"I thought you'd known. I thought..." he paused, uncertain of what to say. 

He'd assumed that his father had tracked down Trey the way he'd tracked down Ryan, and that it hadn't gone well. He'd never thought that Trey could be forgotten. 

"No. I-I guess I wasn't easy to find," Trey said, letting him off the hook. 

Less than five minutes, and it all was back: the way Trey looked out for him, and resented him; the way Ryan looked to him for cues. They'd been a team, once, when they hadn't been at each other's throats. 

"No. You weren't." 

Ryan had tried to find Trey twice, once after Volchok had gone to prison, and once when Dawn had died. It was like he'd vanished into thin air. It had taken two private detectives two weeks to find him this time, with Sandy's help. 

"Your record's been expunged," he added, "You could have come back any time. We tried to find you, to tell you." 

When he'd tried to find Trey that first time, he'd been half-crazy with grief, half-convinced that Marissa's death was Trey's fault; when he went to Sandy, he'd refused to help outright. 

_What good will it do, Ryan? For him or for you? He's already lost everything, so have you. What do you want?_

He'd been utterly shocked by his own response. 

_I want Trey to come home. I want to fix things so he can come home._

He hadn't known until he'd said it that it was exactly what he'd wanted. And he hadn't expected Sandy's help. Three days after Ryan woke up in the hospital with Trey's fingerprints around his throat, Sandy had walked in and said, "I love you more than you'll ever know, Ryan. But don't ask me to help your brother. Not this time. Not after what he's done to you." 

It was a measure of how well he knew Ryan that Sandy never mentioned it again. And it was a measure of how much he loved him that he'd never asked another single question after Ryan's request, just turned up a month later with a signed judge's order and no way to find Trey. 

"I wanted to stay out of your life," Trey said finally, into Ryan's continuing silence. 

"I wanted to forgive you," Ryan said. 

His kids had grown up thinking Seth and Sophie and Jackson were his only siblings; they'd been taught that family was where you found it, not who you came from. They had no idea that the scrappy boys in their favorite bedtime stories - the brave older brother and his timid shadow - were Trey and Ryan; had no idea that Grandpa Frank was, more often than not, the monster that the boys fought off together. 

He saw his father almost as often as he saw the Cohens, but it was as they'd met on the pier in Newport in 2006. They treated each other politely, as he would have anyone Julie had married, and they never talked about the past at all. 

His kids were distraught at Frank's illness; Grandpa Frank and Aunt Julie spoiled them with too-expensive presents and too-lavish holidays, and Grandpa Frank taught them all how to throw a hanging curveball. They never noticed that none of them had ever spent a minute alone with him. They never noticed that their father never stood closer than an arms' length away. Ryan wasn't good at letting things go. 

"Maybe I didn't want to be forgiven," Trey said finally. 

"I'm sorry," Ryan said, dropping his cigarette into the dregs of his beer bottle and hearing it extinguish with a hiss. It was too dark now to see it in front of him. "I shouldn't have called." 

"No, wait," Trey said, his voice low and urgent, so familiar, "Don't go."

_No, Ryan, don't go out there. Wait, Ryan, I'll get you some ice for that eye._

"What - what's wrong with him? How long's he got?" 

"Cancer. Stomach - isn't that something? All those years, and his lungs are healthy as a horse's. He's -- it's bad, Trey. It won't be long now. He's barely coherent these days." 

"And he wants to see me?" 

Ryan heard it again, beneath the bravado - the uncertainty. He wondered if anyone, ever, had wanted Trey for himself. 

"He wants to say goodbye, make amends." 

"Yeah, I know a little about that," Trey muttered. 

Ryan sat back in the lounge chair, tipping his head back towards the emerging stars. 

"Really?" 

He heard Trey exhale again, and when he answered, his voice was soft. 

"Fifteen years sober, LB. Once I stopped trying to forget what I'd done at the bottom of a bottle, I figured maybe it wasn't a friend of mine, you know?" 

"What about me?" 

"What?" 

Ryan wished he had another cigarette, but the rest of the pack was still hidden upstairs in his study. 

"You never tried to make amends to me," he whispered. 

"I thought staying away _was_ making amends. It - it was the hardest thing I've ever done." 

Ryan felt something unwind deep in his stomach at that. 

"I missed you. I miss you. From the day you left Newport. I didn't care what you'd done. I just wanted you to come back." 

"I missed you, too, Ry. Every day. Still do." 

"Will you - will you come?" 

"To see Dad?" 

"To see us. To see me. He - you should see him, meet the family." 

Ryan could hear the longing in his own voice. 

_Please, Trey, can I come with you? Will you show me how? Can I try, too?_

"Yeah, yeah. I can do that. I've gotta make some calls, but I'll see if I can get some days - hey, where are you, after all? I didn't recognize the code." 

"Berkeley. Outside San Francisco. I went here for school, came back before I got married. The Cohens moved here after that big quake in 2007. Dad, too." 

There was silence for a moment, and then Trey's shocked bark of laughter. 

"Whoa, you're a married man. Is - did you and Marissa..." he let his voice trail off as the name left his mouth. 

"What? No. No, Trey, Marissa - Marissa died. A long time ago. Graduation night." 

"Oh God. Did she...did I...?" 

Ryan remembered his fury, his grief, his rage. Blaming Volchok. Blaming Trey. Blaming himself. He hardly thought of Marissa these days, at least not that way. Summer and Seth had named their oldest daughter Cooper, and he sometimes thought he saw glimpses, in her, of the girl Marissa might have been, if she'd been happy. If she'd known how to be happy. 

"No, Trey. It had nothing to do with you." 

His voice barely shook at all. 

"I'm sorry," Trey said, and just like that night so long ago, Ryan knew that it had nothing to do with their current conversation. 

"I know. Me too. It's - we were stupid. Kids. And it's not like we had the best role models." 

Trey laughed again, and Ryan pictured him in his mind, head thrown back, teeth flashing. He'd always been the brightest thing in any room he walked into. 

"Amen to that, LB." 

"How about you? I-I don't know anything about you," he said. 

That wasn't actually true. The detective had given him a fat file on his brother's new life, but Ryan more than anyone knew that words on paper could be nothing but lies. 

"I've got a girl - together now ten years, almost. We never did the marriage thing, seemed like too much like tempting fate, but we're it for each other. She's got a couple kids, they call me Daddy. I like it - all the perks, no chance of actually passing along the Atwood genes." 

"Will they come?" Ryan asked. 

He wanted to see Trey's family, see the kids who called him Daddy. Tell them bedtime stories about their brave father. 

"I don't know. I gotta talk to Rae. She's working the night shift this week - she's a dealer at the Sands. Blackjack, mostly." 

"I - if you can get the time, I can cover it. Plane fare for all of you. You've already got a ticket waiting at the airport." 

He sat up again, holding his breath. Would Trey take it for what it was - a plea? Or would it all start all over again? 

"Nah, Ry. I got it. I can drive - it's not that far, San Francisco." 

"You can't wait that long. You - shouldn't wait." 

"You don't have to do that." 

"I want to. You - you're doing me a favor," he insisted. He'd go out and clear out the guest house tonight; give Trey and his girl some privacy, let the kids bunk with their cousins. He couldn't stand that they were still hours away. He wanted them under his roof, mixing with his family. Family was where you found it. 

"I'm doing Dad a favor," Trey said, "But I'll talk to her and let you know." 

Ryan nodded vigorously to himself in the dark, then realized what he was doing and stopped, feeling foolish. 

"Good, Trey. I'm glad. Dad-Dad'll be happy," he said. 

"So, you doing all right, then, LB? If you're tossing around plane tickets for four?" 

Ryan wanted to tell him everything - about the Cohens, and Sunday dinners, and Jackson, who looked just like Trey, on a soccer scholarship in Utah. About Berkeley, and London and living in Hong Kong. About dropping the ring down Taylor's cleavage when he'd proposed; about the way Sandy had cried at his wedding; about the absent space there'd been all that day. He wanted to tell him about Lizzie's croup and the three nights Cal spent in the incubator, so small, and the way that Rory looked just like her mother, but sounded like Trey every time she opened her smart, beloved mouth. He'd never wanted to talk so much in his life. 

"Nah. The wife makes all the money. I build houses, mostly. The low-income kind. An occasional public space. Not very glamorous." 

"It sounds all right to me" Trey said, and Ryan could hear the snick of a lighter, and Trey's deep inhale. "You know, I build houses sometimes, too. Mostly hotels. Construction. I've been a foreman now a couple years." 

"That's great, Trey," Ryan said, hoping his smile translated across the wireless towers. 

"Yeah, well, some men carry briefcases,,." Trey started, his voice warm and teasing.

"...but real men carry power tools," Ryan finished. It had been years since he'd thought of that. 

"Thank God for Danny, hunh?" Trey said, laughing again. 

"That was the best summer of my life," Ryan said suddenly, fervently. 

He meant it, too. Better than the summer they'd played Little League. Better than the Pancake Tour of North America after his sophomore year at Berkeley. Better than the beach in Ibiza. He and Trey and Danny, leaving each morning with thermos of black coffee, and a hard hat that was too big for him. Danny, letting Trey drive even without his permit; His mom, sober, waiting for them at the end of each day with iced tea and a carton of cigarettes, teasing them about their sunburned noses. But by October, Danny was gone, and Trey was in Stark, and booze was the least of Dawn's problems.

"Mine, too," Trey said.

When Trey had come back, he'd been different. Angry, bitter in a way he hadn't been before. Ryan knew something had changed, but he'd had his own problems. AJ had moved in, and Trey had moved out, dropping out to run hot cars with Eddie and 'Turo. He had left Ryan behind. It hadn't occurred to him that it was the first time Trey had thought of his leaving as a gift to his younger brother. 

"Trey, I'm - I'm really glad you're coming."

"I don't know about that, but I'll be glad to see you," Trey said, exhaling again. "Look, I'm going to run. Call Rae, see if she can get the days, if we can pull the kids out of school, all that stuff. I'll call back in a few hours." 

"Great. That's great. I mean, you call me when you know, and I'll get the tickets set up. I'll, uh, I'll come get you at the airport. Dad'll want to see you right away," Ryan said, standing up and walking over to the railing again. 

Behind him, the house loomed, its windows dark. He'd forgotten to turn on a light before he came out to the terrace; he wanted to get inside before Taylor came home with the kids in the dark. He was strangely reluctant to end the call, though. Afraid that he'd lose Trey in an instant for another twenty years. 

"I'm still not sure I want to see him," Trey said softly, and Ryan nodded, unseen once again. 

"No, no I-I get that." 

And he did. It had taken him years to forgive Frank, or to at least find a way to act as if he'd forgiven him. And he'd been behind Trey for their whole childhood, hidden behind his narrow back, never had a first-class ticket to the show.

"It'll be enough. Enough for him to know that you wanted to," Ryan said, hands gripping the thick stucco railing in front of him. 

"I've always wanted to," Trey whispered, and Ryan knew they weren't talking about his father again.

"You've got my number, right? Call me when you've got a plan. You'll be here soon," Ryan said, as much to himself as to Trey. 

"I'll be there soon. Love ya like a brother, brother," Trey said, and there was a click in his ear as the connection broke. 

"Yeah," Ryan whispered to the dial tone, "Me too."

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Brandy for her prompts, and to miss_begonia for giving it the quick once-over. All mistakes are, of course, totally my own. I own nothing related to the O.C., nor much of anything else, either, frankly. 
> 
> This O.C. story is gen, future!fic and, despite appearances, not a death fic. The title is taken from 2 Timothy 1:2: My beloved son, grace, mercy and peace . . . be upon you.


End file.
